


Clarity

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [267]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Beren is smart and not preoccupied with Mae issues, Gen, Interlude, Mithrim, morning conversations, that puts him ahead of other people on the strategy front
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25236712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Beren looks to the future.
Relationships: Beren Erchamion & Finrod Felagund | Findaráto, Beren Erchamion/Lúthien Tinúviel
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [267]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Kudos: 8





	Clarity

Finrod had a habit of waking before dawn. He rose; he slipped outside the fort. He spoke to the sentries, learning their names and past lives. Traded shifts, alongside sips of warm cider.

Beren observed all these things.

Years in the wilderness, with no camp and no tribe (and often injuries to tend besides) had taught him not to sleep deeply. Still, Mithrim’s hearth was comfortable enough that mornings found him heavy-headed.

He wondered if Luthien would tease him for seeking comfort. Tell him that he had become a child again. If she did, she would join her words with new and better comforts, treating him as something precious, something loved.

Beren opened one eye, conscious of a new morning, and saw Finrod making his way out of the large, open hearth-room, boots silent on stone.

Beren had taught him that. How to walk like that.

Today, though, Beren followed him.

There was only one sentry by the gate—the golden-headed cousin Celegorm, who showed little friendliness to Finrod, and thus, to Beren. Beren avoided him. Finrod had gone in another direction, anyway.

“You are not trying to be quiet,” Finrod called, low but clear, when they were past the murmuring stables, near to the lake.

“No,” Beren said. “I am trying to warm my feet.”

Finrod turned to look at him, the narrow braids above his ears switching like long grasses over his shoulders, tangling with the smooth fall of his unbound hair. “We’ve known colder.”

“The fire makes me a child again,” he said, shrugging, and Finrod laughed.

“Hardly.” He stopped short of the shore, boots touching the mudline, arms folded. He was thinking, thinking hard, about something that troubled him. Beren could tell all that from the way his usually unclouded features were preparing to storm like Turgon’s. Or Fingolfin’s.

“What is it?”

“I’m shirking a duty,” Finrod said. “More than one, I think.”

 _More than one_ must mean that it was not only the cousin locked away behind wood and stone and his family, who brought Finrod pain and uncertainty.

Not that Beren could think of a way in which Finrod had recently failed, or even _been_ failed; Finrod had been so preoccupied with helping. Helping Turgon with the wall. Studying the names, the rites of Mithrim. How the sentries were assigned. How they traded with the nearby townsfolk, how they made alliances. And, after and between all of this, Finrod had visited his cousin.

Finrod had not been idle. What else should he have faced?

The world, maybe. The land and sky and people _outside_. Beren drinks in the wind, and blesses it for its generosity.

It has quenched his thirst; next, it may carry him somewhere needed.

“You are thinking of something,” Finrod said, unfolding his arms so as to touch the point of a water-rush with one fingertip.

Beren said, “Don’t want to speak over-loud.”

“Not possible.” Finrod shook his head, adamant. “You know this land better than we do. I think…you know these enemies better than we do. And as for my family, I cannot be offended by your observations. Say what you will.”

Beren found that the nearest answer he could give gathered all three of Finrod’s guesses. “Your cousin knows them best. Your enemies, I mean.”

Finrod sighed. “It’s too soon. Much as I might want to, or feel even that I ought…I can’t speak to Maedhros of this.”

How long and bright Thingol’s anger had burned! How it made itself felt over field and forest. Anger now was coming from outside towards them, not from Thingol. And much worse than the world and its free winds was inner anger. Beren could feel that, too, coming from their own hearts.

From _Finrod’s_ heart.. Beren knew what Finrod’s blood had done to him, to Fingolfin. Beren knew he could not mend that wound with gentle stitches or a weapon’s strength. He could only look out beyond the wind’s laced fingers, to the edge of the fire. Freedom, the edge of fire. He had run there, once.

“You and I,” he said, for now, wanting safety and freedom and peace. Knowing, as the wounded must, that a war must be found first, sometimes. “There is a hunt for us.”

“A hunt?”

“You have seen Mithrim. All of it. You will see more.” Beren watched as the east opened just as Finrod’s compass had said it would, releasing its splendid shades of daylight gold and cloud-stirred silver. “But what do we know of the town? What do we know of the _yrch_?”

Finrod was silent.

“Sooner or later,” Beren said. “They will come.”

And who will know them and their anger?


End file.
